168 KAMSGHATKA. [chap. 



an eruption of Kluclii had occurred. There had been no pre\dous 

 warnings, although the mountain is always more or less in a state 

 of activity, but on the morning of August 14tli, dense clouds of 

 smoke appeared above the crater, and at mid-day the sky was as 

 dark as night. Before long ashes began falling, and in a few hours 

 the ground was covered with them to the depth of three inches. 

 There was no earthquake, but, on the following morning, a small 

 stream of lava poured from the lip of the crater on the north side. 

 It descended but a short distance, however, and, shortly after, the 

 mountain returned to its usual state of threatening quiescence. 

 With this exception there have been no eruptions within the 

 memory of man, or at least none of any magnitude. A few ashes 

 often fall, and had done so not long before our visit, but the recent 

 falls of snow had done much to hide them. 



Kluchi appears to have been still more active in the middle of 

 the last century. Krasheninikov, in the work I have mentioned, 

 says that " it throws out ashes twice or thrice yearly, and sometimes 

 in such quantities, that for 300 versts around the earth is covered 

 with them to the depth of a vershoke (nearly two inches). From 

 the year 1727 to 1731 the inhabitants observed that it burnt 

 almost without interruption, but they were not under such appre- 

 hensions as in the last conflagration in tlie year 1737. This 

 terrible conflagration began the 25th of September, and lasted one 

 week with such violence, that to the people who were fishing at 

 sea near the mountain it appeared one red-hot rock, and the flames 

 which burst through several openings sometimes showed like rivers 

 of fire with a shocking noise." On the 6th of October there was 

 an earthquake of tremendous violence in the Avatcha district and 

 the southern point of Kamschatka; regions which, it should be 

 observed, lie in a direct line between Kluchi and the volcanic 

 chain of the Kuril Islands. An enormous tidal wave occurred, 

 "overflowing the shore 200 feet high," and killing many of the 

 inhabitants ; but the country in the immediate neighbourhood of 

 the volcano did not appear to suffer much, although a violent 



